


let us be seventeen

by south_like_sherman



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety, Blackmail, Break Up, Dark, Depression, Dyslexia, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Fire, Foster Care, Gossip, Heavy Angst, High School, I promise, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Modern Era, Panic Attacks, Pining, Self-Harm, Verbal Abuse, t e a r s, they just really really need love, will be some fluff tho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2018-09-17 10:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9319856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/south_like_sherman/pseuds/south_like_sherman
Summary: "They're seventeen. They're all seventeen, and they're all alone, they're all just trying to find something, someone,anyoneto cling to, to hold on so tight they'll never let go, because they know if they do they'll fall, and if they fall they'll never get back up. They all know being trapped in the air is better than being free on the ground."orthe soc high school au no one asked for. [warning: a lot darker than most high school au's. the angst is strong.]





	1. Chapter 1

Kaz Brekker is a genius. At least, that was what his exam papers say- everything else says he's a freak (his cane, his limp, his crooked nose, his dark, glistening eyes). But that's okay, because 'freak' is a status he can work with. Freak can mean one of two things:

A freak is someone who is classified as 'weird' by the popular consensus of the high school population; someone who eats their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in a toilet cubicle, who is beaten up by jocks after school, who asks why Nina Zenik broke up with Matthias Helvar, as though it isn't already obvious.

Or, a freak is someone who is simply different. Kaz is different, has always been different, and he uses it as a weapon, like the sleek black cane he holds tightly in his gloved hands. Something that shouldn't be dangerous (in fact, should be a source of pity) is now something to fear, something to avoid. As the other students dip their heads with a nervous tremor when they see him limping (he limps everywhere in life, and raises hell when he arrives) along the long hallways of Ketterdam High, Kaz holds his proud and aloft.

No one dares touch him; not after the first day when someone did and he'd broken three of their fingers with one heavy boot. It was their fault- he told them to back off, and they didn't (they never do; words aren't enough) so he lashed out, with fists and elbows and snarled obscenities. He fights rough and dirty and fast- street fighting, they call it. Or, survival. Because that's what it'd been for Kaz. When they found him, curled up in a dark alleyway, he'd pulled a knife and threatened to 'drag their guts out from between their shiny white teeth' if they came any closer. And he would've, if they hadn't mentioned Jordie's name, and the knife clattered from his hands as though it burned, as though his hands were too weak to keep clutching onto it as tightly as he was (because maybe if he keeps holding that knife in that alley on that night he'll forget Jordie, forget everything- God, he wants to forget). Jordie has always been his weakness.

Kaz thinks in logical steps (because sometimes logic is the only thing that makes sense) and carefully thought out, detailed plans (read as: garbled, reckless spur-of-the-moment dares), so it's no surprise that Language Arts isn't his favourite subject. He prefers maths, because at least he knows there's an answer, a definite, sure answer that he knows he's gotten right, knows as well as his name (although sometimes, when the nights become suffocating and unbearably hot and the sky presses down on him, around him, and all he can feel is Jordie's hand pressed in his, he isn't all that sure he can remember it anymore because there's only Jordie, and there's always Jordie and it's just Jordie, Jordie and nothing else).

Language Arts drags on, on and on and on and on, and Kaz can't help but swipe a hand through the shorn hair bordering his head, stealing a swift, longing glance at the clock, the second hand dragging around achingly slowly. Five minutes. Only five minutes left. He can do this.

He turns his weary gaze back to the blank notepaper before him, tapping his pen against it impatiently. He hasn't bothered to write anything. Doesn't care. It doesn't interest him, and he doesn't see the point in pursuing something he doesn't like (but then again, there are so many things in life he chases that he doesn't like).

When the bell rings, it's a relief.

He doesn't bother to pack up his things because he knows he'll be back. He's always back.

* * *

Inej Ghafa is kind. Well, according to her friends (she refuses to call them 'colleagues' like Kaz- because they aren't, they're her friends) she is. Ask anyone else, and she's scary. She shouldn't be though, because Inej isn't the type of girl who looks scary in any way, shape or form- she's short, made up of angles and lines, but she's one of those people who somehow make angles seem soft and lines seem round because everything about her is warm- her skin, her eyes, her smile, her laugh, her hands. Her skin is dark, a rich caramel shade as though she's been dipped in the candy, and the sugar coating her is infectious.

When she smiles, crows feet crinkle at the corners of her large, dark eyes, because she's one of those people who smiles often- so often, in fact, that the motion has left marks in her body, in the form of small creases. But, of course, there are other marks left on her body from things far less pleasurable than smiling. _Your body is a temple_. Others didn't seem to treat it that way.

She's young, too- only seventeen, but she's seventeen and alone. They're all seventeen and alone, they're all seventeen, and they're all just trying to find something, someone, anyone to cling to, to hold on so tight they'll never let go, because they know if they do they'll fall and if they fall they'll never get back up, and being trapped in the air is better than being free on the ground.

Her gaze is focused intently on the careful graphite words she scratches out with painstaking care, every character rounded and carved into the page with copious amounts of effort, as if every word counts (and it does, because they all matter, every single one- and there are pages of them).

She writes in pencil, because she knows by now that nothing's permanent.

* * *

Jesper is okay. Jesper's always okay, always fine, always on the ball, but that's not enough. Okay has never been enough, and no one ever seems to be satisfied with 'okay'. So he builds himself something which is more than just okay, more than a whispered 'sorry' in the skin of someone who never deserved apology- but when he builds it, it shatters into shards and cuts him, cuts the soles of his feet, his hands, his face, his neck, his arms as he stumbles through the wreckage of what he worked so hard to build. But he picks himself up and tries again, because in the end he knows it'll be worth it if he's more than ok.

His skin is the inside of a cocoa bean, smooth and bitter and dark, different from the vivid caramel of Inej's and sometimes he wishes it wasn't, because when Kaz looks at Inej, it's like all he wants to do is touch her, and keep touching her until he's brushed up against every lovely inch of her and Jesper isn't that, Jesper isn't lovely. Jesper is rough and sharp and hard to touch, and he wishes he was soft like Inej.

The led of his mechanical pencil snaps as he presses down against the lined paper a fraction too hard, and he curses at the dent it leaves in his lovely, unblemished writing. Well, he thinks it's lovely- others can't even read it. His y's join onto his t's and his c's look far too similar to his o's, and his words are disjointed and ugly, flecks of missing dots above i's scattered about the page.

They said his writing is too dark for someone his age, too sad, too disturbing, so he cultivates his hand until they can't read it anymore, until the only comment people can make on it is in regards to his handwriting.

Sometimes Jesper's not sure if he's okay at all. Other times he thinks it doesn't matter.

* *

Wylan is innocent. Well, not _that_ innocent. But he certainly looks the part, with his wide, soft, blue eyes (sometimes people think they can see clouds drift across them), fair, creamy skin and and golden halo of hair. He's the sun and the sky, and sometimes the sun passes behind a cloud and the sky starts to rain. Wylan's sky rains a lot.

When he laughs, he clamps a sweater clad hand over his rosy lips, as though it's a secret, muffling his mirth in long, clever fingers. But he doesn't laugh a lot, anyway. Doesn't talk a lot, either. The less he speaks, the less they have to hold against him- the less his father has to hold against him.

His father never touches him, but there are scars on his body that will never heal. When Jesper flings an arm around him for the first time, he flinches, and he doesn't know why because it feels _good_. It burns and it burns and it burns and it burns, but he loves the flames. Jesper's so casual when he touches Wylan, like he doesn't know that every time he does Wylan can feel the fire eat at him a little more, because Jesper doesn't know, doesn't know anything at all.

Wylan doesn't write, either. Actually, that's not true, because he does (he writes pages and pages and pages), but not of what they want to see. He doesn't write letters, he writes notes, long black stalks connecting neatly onto rounded ovals, sitting squarely between lines, obedient and passive (but they're not obedient, not passive, not any of those things, because when Wylan looks at them he can see them float off the page, hear the melody wreathe around his longing ears), and they make sense to him, more than anything else. Words don't. Words are confusing and twisted, and there's no order, no neat system to them like music. They just sprawl out across pages, line after line after line after line after line, and they force into his head and sit there and wait, wait for him to make sense of them but he can't, he _can't_.

He plays the flute, but that's not enough- nothing's enough. He paints, too- or, well, he used to.

He hasn't painted since his mother died. He looks at the paints, and he sees them spilling across the cold floor in a swirl of colours, and he sees her lying in a pool of scarlet and he can't tell if it's paint or blood and _God please let it be paint_.

It wasn't paint.

It's not paint he's writing with now, which is a shame because he used to love stealing his mother's paints and brushes, trying write his name with the soft, fine tip. It never worked.

But now, instead of his name at the top of the page, there's a treble clef, and it's more beautiful than anything else Wylan could scrawl out with his shaky hand.

* * *

Nina is a slut. Or, she looks like one and that doesn't make sense to Nina, because she thinks that her clothes don't define who she is and who she sleeps with shouldn't have an affect on people's opinions of her, because it certainly didn't affect their opinion of who she'd slept with and she thinks it shouldn't matter but it does. High school thinks differently (society thinks differently), because girls are different, girls should be quiet but not too quiet, pretty but not too pretty, and fun but not too fun and she's so sick of it, so sick of this stereotype because she's not quiet, not quiet at all and she doesn't care how loud her opinions are because she has to be heard. They always drown her out in the end.

Her voice is lost under a mass of white noise, and she drowns with it. As she drowns, she dreams, but the water fills her lungs and suffocates her, drags her down and it's caught in her hair, weighing down her clothes and she wants to take them off but no, she can't because they won't let her. They don't like it.

Matthias liked it, liked it when she was bared for him, when her skin was the only thing between him and her and the night- but then, of course, her clothes came back on and he went away and she's never going to have him again. She can find solace in the company of other men, but she doesn't want to, and when she does she can't help but picture his hands instead, stroking her long, elegant curves, caressing the arch of her cheek, the swell of her breast, and when she cries out his name when she climaxes, she knows she deserves the blow that comes her way.

She closes her eyes, squeezing them shut until colours bloom beneath her eyelids (she loves the colours more than anything else, she thinks), but she still can't breathe so she clenches her hands even tighter around the pencil, holding on as if it's her anchor, as if she's full of helium and if she lets go she'll just float away, higher and higher into the hot, bright sky until she burns up and falls. But that's not right, because she feels so _heavy_ , and she _isn't_ full of helium, she's weighed with rocks and dragged down by  stones she can't lift and she just _can't_ , she isn't strong enough to lift them and she can't see the sunlight anymore, and God, she wants to see the sunlight, more than anything else.

The pencil shatters in her hands. She blinks, releasing the splinters of wood from her clenched fist, and looking back down at her assignment.

Her page is empty, spare for a few crossed out, half-finished sentences, and the brilliant droplets of scarlet blood scattering between the lines.

The corner of her mouth hitches up slightly, and she wonders if they carry lipstick in that shade.

* * *

Matthias is strong. He's muscle and fire and flesh and blood and bone- but not brains. At least, that's what they think. Matthias is smart, incredibly so, actually- but they never look past his muscle, never look past his status as quarterback, never look past his parents or his pride or his face. He doesn't expect them to.

He's large and burly and alone, and he wishes he wasn't. He wasn't alone a few months ago, because he had Nina- but Nina's gone now, and he doesn't know why. He lost her somehow, and it doesn't make sense because he doesn't know _why_ she left, and God, he wishes he did. In fact, he wishes she hadn't left at all.

His eyes are ice blue, and in winter they feel even colder because ice isn't warm, isn't warm at all, and somehow it's caught in his eyes and he doesn't know how to get it out and it burns. His hair isn't warm either, it's not bright or brilliant, it's a blonde so pale it's almost silver, like the sun which has been bleached by the frost, the sun without fire, and he's so goddamn tired of being cold. Nina's warm, but Nina's gone.

He doesn't carve letters onto his paper; instead he inscribes short, quick pen strokes, hunching over his page as though he's scared someone will see (no one can see). He leans back in his chair to look at whatever he's drawn over the lined paper, examining it with a diligent focus for a few moments. It looks too familiar.

When he crosses it out, he's angry, angry and hurt and betrayed as he slashes black scars of biro over Nina's lovely face. When he looks down again, it's sliced and distorted with deep gouges of biro, a hollow echo of the finely carved drawing it had once been. He smiles.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Professor Haskell decides he should talk with Kaz, and Jesper is confused.

"Mr. Brekker- a word, son." Professor Haskell's voice is frail and cracked, as though it might shatter at any moment, shatter like glass- no, not glass, because glass cuts you, slices you- Professor Haskell definitely isn't capable of that. His voice is more like a limp, soggy sponge- already soaked up everything it can hold, and is just dripping everywhere, has outlived its use.

Kaz grits his teeth, a muscle jumping in his cheek as he clenches his hand around the carved head of his cane until his knuckles go white, until white's the only colour he can see.

Inej pauses by the door, holding her own in the mad rush of students scrambling towards the door as the bell rings- it's an unacknowledged race among the population of Ketterdam High. No one really _likes_ the greyish slop the school calls food- but then again, it's not really about the food, is it? It's just whoever gets there first, because they all know it's not the food people want, it's the satisfaction. Kaz can arrive as late as he wants for lunch, and still be let into the very front of the queue.

One of Inej's thick eyebrows arch slightly as she glances between him and the Professor. A silent question. He jerks his head at her, gesturing for her to go on without him. She shrugs, and leaves, long, tightly coiled braid barely swaying at all with the smooth, graceful steps of her gait. He wants to smile when he notices this (because Inej always makes him want to smile- makes everyone want to smile), but he doesn't, because Kaz Brekker doesn't smile. He growls, he snarls, he smirks- but he doesn't smile. It's too late to start now.

"Sir?" Kaz's tone is gruff, unfriendly and harsh when he speaks, the gravelly sound it makes jarring his ear. His voice is broken glass, and it cuts everyone around him.

Professor Haskell smiles- a weak, watery thing, as though he's almost forgotten how- and tilts his head slightly to the side. Kaz doesn't fail to notice how the weak winter sunlight gleams on the shiny bald spot sitting squarely in the middle of his head. "Come up closer, son, I have trouble hearing you from that distance. My ears aren't what they once were." He attempts a laugh, which goes about as well as the smile.

Kaz leans heavily on his cane as he stands, as though it's the only thing keeping him upright- and it is. His knee complains loudly as he sets it down heavily against the hard floor, but he grits his teeth, keeps his face neutral and limps onwards. His knee's always worse in the cold weather- something about barometric pressure. Honestly, it doesn't really make any difference if he knows the name of it- all he knows is that it hurts, and he can't let it show. Pain is weakness, and weakness will be targeted, exploited.

The professor seems harmless enough, but one can never tell- that scruffy, grief-stricken boy in the alley had seemed harmless too, but by god, did he prove them all wrong. Then again, look at him now- a clean-cut student in a black trench coat with a cane as polished as he is. But he looks in the mirror, and still sees that boy, hard and rough and dirty, because that's what he is- dirty. People treat him like that's the case, anyway. As though he's been bruised and damaged beyond repair, bloodied and scuffed to the point they can't bear to touch him anymore. But that's good- he doesn't want them to touch him (but the thing is sometimes he does, sometimes all he wants is for someone to touch him, just to feel someone else's skin against his own, because sometimes it feels like nothing's real, like he's alone and everything else just isn't there, is just a figment of his mind, and he doesn't think he can bear that).

When Kaz reaches the front of the classroom, he lurches to a stop, shifting on his feet slightly to even out the pressure on his knee (because it's just short of unbearable now, the kind of ache that bites and claws at him, demands attention). He gives the professor a tight, thin-lipped smile, stretched in a taught line across his face, like elastic pulled so tight it's about to snap at any moment- the kind that isn't quite a smile, but a thinly veiled threat. Professor Haskell doesn't seem to notice the thorns lurking between the roses in Kaz offers him though, just continues speaking in that strange, low, watery tone.

"I like you Kaz, I really do," he begins, gazing at Kaz with a fond kind of expression, like the kind a father might regard his son. "You-"

"Remind me of yourself at my age, you've said," Kaz cuts in, the crease furrowing between his thick eyebrows shattering the emotionless facade he'd been so careful to maintain. He wishes the old man would just _get to the point_.

Professor Haskell frowns slightly at Kaz's outburst. "See, son-"

"I'm not your son," Kaz snaps, lips curling into a vicious snarl.

"This is the problem." Professor Haskell sends him a sharp look- a silent warning. Kaz never listens to warnings. "You have potential, Kaz, but you need to stop mouthing off your teachers like that. They're not all as forgiving as I am-" Kaz snorts derisively. "- and it's only a matter of time before you find there are severe repercussions for things like that."

"What, like making me pick gum off the desks?" Kaz lets a small smile tug at his lips, amused by the professor's attempt to scold him. It will take a lot more than just a few weak words to cow Kaz Brekker.

" _Kaz_ ," Professor Haskell explodes, slamming his hands down on the desk in a way he must think is threatening. His face is turning a red blotchy kind of colour, head seeming to swell as though someone is slowly pumping him up from behind, like a deflated tyre, "I am trying to help you for God's sake, if you will just _listen_ for once in your goddamn life!"

Kaz arches an eyebrow. "Professor, I listen. The thing is, I disagree with what I'm hearing."

The Professor slumps back in his chair, defeated and deflated, like someone has pricked him with a pin. His face slowly drains of the little colour it had gained in his burst of adrenaline, and he exhales, long and heavy.

"You are dismissed, Mr. Brekker."

The air of formality is back.

Kaz smiles, sweet as poison, and dips his head slightly.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Professor."

As he closes the door behind him, he thinks he hears what might've been a board eraser thump into the barrier of wood between them, probably thrown from the Professor's seat behind his desk. He doesn't turn around.

Inej is waiting when he reaches the end of the corridor, inky shadows falling across her face in thick brush strokes, her shining braid curled over one narrow shoulder, almost blending in with her over-large hoodie. He almost smiles when he sees her. She, on the other hand, doesn't even try to hide the grin that twitches across her lips- because she always smiles, offers them to people on a silver platter as though they're the most generous thing she can think to give, thick lips curling back to reveal that familiar gleam of white teeth. She smiles broadly and sweetly at anyone and everyone, because why not?

"What did he want?"

Her voice is clear and rich, and he sometimes thinks he never wants to stop hearing it.

"The usual. Thinks I should stop talking back to professors, that I've got potential, all that shit." His voice is low and gravelly and harsh, and he pretends it doesn't make him want to flinch when he hears it.

Inej chooses to ignore his foul language, instead pushing her lean body off of the wall with a casual grace and quickening her pace to catch up with Kaz, who hadn't even slowed his halting rhythm at the sight of her.

"Jesper's probably waiting."

"Good. Makes a change for once," Kaz mutters, almost to himself. Jesper Fahey doesn't wait. He takes and he takes and he takes- he shoots for the stars and comes away with only clouds, because Jesper Fahey has no _patience_. Kaz has waited his time, and he's done with that now- he has no need for patience anymore.

He can hear the frown in Inej's lovely voice when she speaks.

"You need to stop being so hard on him."

"I'll be as hard on him as I like," Kaz growls, lips curling into what can only be described as a snarl. Jesper is good, really- sharp, witty, quick, clever- but he makes mistakes, mistakes that can sometimes cost Kaz more than he thought was possible. He knows there's only so far he can push Jesper before he snaps, because Jesper is high-strung and taught, and Kaz can tell when he's about to break. He tiptoes just around that line, only occasionally toeing at the thin wire, and so Jesper stays by his side.

A small, skinny boy trips a couple feet away from Kaz, books and papers spilling everywhere where he'd clutched them in his sweater-clad arms (Kaz will never know why people don't just put them in a fucking bag- it's literally right on their back, is it really so hard?). A small something stirs at the corner of Kaz's lips, something like amusement.

Wylan Van Eck. The name pops into his head without much thought. Kaz can tell by the expensive, shining shoes, the branded sweatshirt (a turtle neck, for some reason), the golden hair falling in waves over his eyes, which Kaz knows are a soft, hazy blue. His skin is almost as white as his teeth, which should give him an almost vampire-ish complexion, but is remedied by the rosy blurs on his high cheeks. He's innocent and rich and shy, and Kaz thinks he might hate him. So when he reaches the boy crouched on the hard floor, frantically trying to gather his multitude of loose papers (use a fucking binder, Kaz thinks), he just steps over him as though he's simply an obstacle in his way. His cane thuds to the ground just by Wylan's hand, and he flinches, snatching his long fingers back as though he's been burned. Kaz smiles, because he's fire.

He can feel Inej's dark eyes searing a hole into his back, but he doesn't slow his uneven steps. Let her deal with it. He hears her slow behind him, crouch and start to gather Wylan's things in her arms. Her voice floats to him through the thick, heavy air of the corridor.

"Here, let me get that- Kaz would help, he _really would_ , he's just a bit preoccupied right now."

Her tone is soft, gentle- well, until she mentions his name, taking on a sharper, harder edge, and he thinks he might be able pretend it doesn't make him wince.

She catches up with him a few moments later, hair whipping over her shoulder as she elbows him sharply in the side, a sharp breath escaping in a violent huff from his unwilling lips, and he stumbles slightly, sending a burning jolt right from his knee up to his hip, before righting himself with a painful amount of effort (because Inej knows how to make it hurt, knows where to hit people where it really stings- although of course, if she had been trying, he would be gasping on the floor in agony right now- he isn't sure whether to feel proud or afraid).

He scowls at her, trying to ignore the stabbing pain in his side.

"What was that for?"

"You're a dick sometimes, you know that?" Her gaze cuts through him, sharp and piercing as a dagger- hurts like one, too.

"I thought I was a dick all of the time." Kaz tilts his head slightly to the side, frowning, as though this confuses him.

Inej exhales, long and heavy, but he can feel her anger start to evaporate. The thing is, she doesn't really get angry- she gets frustrated, sure, but not angry, and it doesn't take too long to get her back into that sweet, gentle mindset. But when she's angry, truly angry, it's enough to terrify even Kaz- although he'll never admit that- but not because she's a girl, or any of that sexist bullshit. Kaz has met plenty of girls worthy of fear, because in fact, one would be insane not to fear them, suicidal, even. It's because Kaz Brekker can't be seen as _afraid_ , because fear is something he left behind in the shadows of the street, in the silver gleam of blood in the moonlight.

The queue for lunch stretches around the corridor, snaking out of doors of the canteen in a rowdy, seething mess of students, and Kaz feels some part of him shudder at the lack of order. But, he reminds himself, there is order amongst the chaos. There's a hierarchy in the school, and he's at the top.

* *

Jesper's been waiting far too long. Well, too long for his taste, at least. Jesper has never been particularly well known for his patience, and this is just about enough to crumble his already weak resolve. The clock at the opposite end of the hall seems to taunt him, plain black hands moving so achingly slowly. It can't have been only ten minutes, surely- at least an hour- or, thats what it feels like to Jesper.

He picks with a kind of disheartening, uninterested manner at the greyish slop spilled carelessly into his tray. Honestly, he can't really blame the kitchen staff for the state of the food- they're underpaid, over worked, and under appreciated. To be honest, it's a wonder they even have any kitchen staff; but most of the time, the only people who take jobs working in a high school cafeteria are the ones who have no other options.

Letting the 'food' drip back onto his untouched tray, he drops the plastic fork with a clatter (which is barely audible over the awful din of what sounds like several tribes of hormonal, hungry teenagers). He's not that hungry anyway.

"My eyes are up here, Fahey."

Jesper jerks his eyes up at the sound of Kaz's rough, gravelly voice, immediately straightening his posture.

"Where the fuck were you? I was waiting," he whines, voice not unlike that of a petulant child's- but he doesn't care, because he's been waiting for fucking  _forever_ , and by God, Kaz better have an excuse. There are only a few things in this world Jesper can't stand, and waiting is one of them.

"Patience is a virtue." Kaz sets his tray down on the long lunch table with a heavy thud, dropping himself down onto the seat and balancing his cane on the edge of the table. It slides to the side, listing dangerously close to falling. Inej materialises (he swears to god, that girl is like a ghost) behind him, balancing her tray on one hand and adjusting the cane to a less precarious angle with a effortless kind of grace- because that's how Inej does everything. With a soft, sweet elegance that affects everything she does, rubs off on everything she touches, and he thinks if he squints his eyes just right, he can see soft, purple smudges of her finger prints left on the cane where she'd touched it moments before.

"Where were you?" he repeats, acknowledging Inej with a short jerk of his head.

"We were busy." Kaz rolls his eyes, and begins to pick at his food, as though Jesper was boring him, waving off his attentions with an indirect, vague answer. He ignores the stab of hurt that shoots through him.

They were busy.

_They were **busy**._

"Oh," he curls the word around his lips and flings it out, the bitterness with which he says it leaving a sharp, sour taste on his tongue. He wishes he can fling that out, too. "I'll leave you alone then, I guess."

He picks up his tray, getting to his feet, and he's proud of himself for keeping the almost drunken swaying to a minimum.

Inej regards him with a quizzical tilt of her head, a stray piece of her soft hair drifting into her sweet, dark eyes. Kaz only shrugs with a careless dismissal, already raising the fork to his lips. Jesper squints his eyes at him until Kaz is only a black blur, until he thinks he can see the purple smudges of Inej, the haze of violet staining the tips of his fingers, his lips. God, he fucking hates purple. Jesper finds it surprisingly easier to leave after that.

He doesn't need them, he repeats to himself, and his pace quickens along with his heart.

_He doesn't need them._

No, he doesn't need _them_. Sometimes he thinks he needs only one of them. But that's the  
problem, isn't it? He always needs what he cannot have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk what i think about this chapter but??? hope you don't mind the pov switches plus i'm shit at writing anything other than description but  
> i have so many ideas for this aghhhhhh idk how i'm gonna fit them into seventeen chapters especially bc my chapters are shorter than most  
> you'll probably end up with having like ten thousand words in the last one or something i am also shit at planning  
> comments=more motivation=more updates  
> just sayin please give me love  
> also thanks for all the lovely comments last chapter really made my day  
> tumblr is [here](http://the-girl-who-cried-ship.tumblr.com/)  
> thanks for reading have a lovely day!
> 
> ~ Kinzie


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Wylan accidentally sets off a bomb. Or, it isn't an accident, per se. And it isn't really Wylan who sets it off.

It shouldn't have exploded, Wylan reasons with himself as he's hassled out of the flaming lab, safety glasses hanging lopsided off the bridge of his nose. Well, he didn't _mean_ for it to explode- not yet, at least. The plan had been to set off the flash bomb during one of the professor's lectures, so then maybe something mildly interesting might happen during the snooze-fest that Professor Yul-Bayur's classes usually turned out to be. (There was no denying the man was smart, but he was always so preoccupied in his own mind that he never seemed to have time for anything else, let alone a room full of seventeen year old high-schoolers, most of whom didn't even want to be there).

It would've gone well though, if it hadn't been for Jesper's intervention. It'd been fine, until he'd leaned over the desk and knocked everything over, then laughed as the flames blew up in his face and Wylan dragged him away because he seemed like he wanted it to burn him. (Wanted the pain. Wanted flames.) Wylan tries to scowl at the memory, but the expression comes out as something different, something soft and blissful when he remembers the way Jesper's sharp, quick laughter had sliced through thick and sleepy air. He decides he should stop trying to assign blame- it had made the lesson interesting at least, which he supposes had been his initial goal.

He twitches his lab coat away from the flickering flames licking at the edge of the creased white material, turning up his nose at the heat. It's the kind that seems to stretch over your skin in a thick layer of burning ashes, cracking and pulling at your skin, tearing it apart, and he thinks this might not have been his best idea. 

Sweat is beading on Professor Yul-Bayur's wide forehead, green eyes glinting golden in the hot, bright light the flames emit across the stifling room. He ushers the students out of the room with a soot-stained hand, his face stretched tight in an expression that just about conveys the stress this situation is putting on him. If you ask Wylan, he seems to be under reacting a bit, seeing as his lab is fucking burning. (Sorry. He shouldn't swear.)

When Wylan reaches the door, the professor seems to give him a slight glare, eyes slitting so only the faintest sliver of shining amber is visible, lashes a thick charcoal that almost obscure what little of his eyes left in sight. Wylan blinks back at him, wide and soft and innocent, offering a lazy flash of gleaming white teeth through thick lips. Professor Yul-Bayur exhales, long and heavy and tired, glowering with a heat to rival that of the flames, flicking his burning eyes to the next student to the door.

As Wylan leaves the room, he doesn't look back, because the flames have always been too bright.

* *

Matthias is in art class when the fire alarm goes off, and he's not going to lie, it pisses him off just a little bit. His sculpture is almost finished, and he's so deep into the creative process he's not sure how he even drags himself out. How he even hears the bell. But he does, and it annoys him like nothing else.

They're lining up on the basketball court in what he thinks is supposed to lines and the teachers are shouting and the students are shouting back and they all think it's a drill until someone smells the smoke. Until someone sees the flames rising from the flickering lab. Then they're murmuring and the teacher's are frowning and they're all looking like someone's died (but he shouldn't joke about that. They all know that might actually be the case. Know it might be their friends in that building. Know there might be nothing left of these friends but ash), and Matthias is trying to think of anyone he knows in the science block. 

He tries to think of anyone but Nina. Fails, because all he can think about is Nina burning (and he knows it's stupid. He's looking up statistics on the phone he's not supposed to have on him because they're supposed to leave everything behind and wanting to laugh because only ten people die in school fires a year, but he knows that ten people is more than none at all and Nina might very well become a statistic. So he worries.)

Then there's a small trickle of people stumbling out of the burning building (but it's not really burning. It's tiny, really. Almost like someone's lit a match in a room and just let it burn. Can barely be counted as a fire, he reasons.) They're not hurt, and he tells himself the rush of hot relief flooding up his stiff spine when he sees them is normal. Has nothing to do with the girl with ever-green eyes and ebony hair. With a forest in her lungs. They all know how flammable trees are.

But he reminds himself he doesn't care, so he sullenly kicks a loose pebble with one scuffed converse, and he can pretend it makes him feel a little better. He's trying to come up with a metaphor, but his mind is empty. (All he knows is that it has something to do with trees and forests and lungs and paint. Something to do with roses and knives.) 

This is what happens when you interrupt his creative process.

* *

They're not allowed back into the building for a couple hours, which Nina thinks is a bit pointless, seeing as all the other classes are literal miles away from the science block. No kidding, it's placed in probably the most inconvenient spot. It's like they looked at the map of the school and pointed to the place furthest away on the campus and went, "Yup. That seems as far away as possible. Let's put it there!". Sometimes, she'll find herself having to skip lunch just to make it in time because the lord knows Professor Yul-Bayur does not forgive the tardy.

She's getting side-tracked again, isn't she? (She likes that word. Makes her think of trains falling off the tracks, and she's never quite sure how to get it back on.) That tends to happen a lot. They say it's due to her ADHD, but she likes to think she'd be like that even without a fancy name to give it. 

But, yeah, she thinks it's pointless that everyone else has to wait outside when they could be studying. The firemen arrive at some point, with red trucks and hoses and sirens louder than anything else she's ever heard, and it makes her think of when she was younger. When she'd pick up small shiny models of them and make car noises and pretend she was driving them, pretend she was putting out fires. Pretend she was helping. Then people told her that's not what girls are supposed to do and took away her lovely, red trucks and gave her dolls that she didn't know what to do with. Now the red reminds her of blood.

At some point someone says they can leave and people are cheering and hollering because anything remotely good is a cause of celebration when you're seventeen and depressed. Seventeen and alone.

There's a boy at the back of the crowd she sees, a boy who doesn't cheer or clap. Just turns and leaves, and she knows him. But doesn't go up to him, because he's one of those people she knows too well, and she knows that doesn't make sense. He's one of those people you get to know so intimately you can trace the lines of their bones in your sleep. You know the taste of their mouth and how they kiss and how when they smile just right small crinkles appear in their marble features, and you feel like you can reach right into their chest and pull something out, something blood-dark and lovely and find it still beats. 

Sorry. She's getting sidetracked again. (Trains falling off tracks.)

But when she looks at him, she can see right through his flesh, right to his ivory bones, and she wants to touch him. Doesn't even want to kiss him. Just wants to feel his bones against hers once more, wants to melt again. 

She remembers reading somewhere that your teeth are the hardest substance in your body, and somehow that makes sense to her. It makes sense that her smile is stronger than her bones.

* *

Inej hates the cold. She's always hated it, because she's made of steam and petals and soft, green shoots, and god knows those things don't do well under ice.

She shivers, stamping her feet because the cold is starting to seep through her hoody, which she's seriously considering getting a refund for because it's doing an absolute shit job at keeping her warm. Her teeth are keeping up a steady chatter in her numb mouth, causing her lips tremble. Causing her whole being to tremble, because it's the kind of cold that doesn't just stop at your skin. She clenches them tight together so that there's no room for shaking, no room for weakness because she can see Kaz giving her that insufferable smirk in the corner of her eye, and she'll be damned if she lets him have that satisfaction. 

"You're cold," he states, in an odd kind of voice, like he's half amused and half something else she can't quite pinpoint. 

She scowls, shrinking further into her hoody and crossing her hands over her chest. Fuck Kaz. Fuck him and his fucking thermal skin. Fuck it all.

Then there's something soft and heavy settling over her shoulders, something that smells of mint and metal and gunpowder, and it does a better job at keeping out the cold than anything else can think of. And she thinks of a lot of things. She thinks of soup and hot chocolate and coffee and forgiveness. She thinks of a boy with a cane and a cruel glint in his eye. She thinks of home.

She glances up at Kaz through wide, oil-black lashes, and sees him glaring off to the hazy horizon with a determined kind of focus, a thick crease knitting his broad brows together. She smiles, something soft and sweet and almost sly, pulling the coat a bit closer around her shaking shoulder. 

Kaz Brekker is a gentleman. 

* * *

There's a boy in the background no one sees. His name is Kuwei, and he's invisible. Well, not literally. Invisibility hadn't been invented, isn't real, so that's impossible. But, from a metaphorical point? Yes. He's invisible. 

He's been going to Ketterdam High for four fucking years, and no one knows his name, because- well, it doesn't really matter does it? No one can pronounce it, anyway. (Ku-wei, he says, extra slow so people can follow. It doesn't matter how he says it, because they all usually leave before they get it.) 

He likes to think of himself as white noise, likes to compare himself to something, to make himself relatable. That's how he should describe himself. Always in the background, but never noticed. Taken for granted. He's constantly there, and constantly unnoticed, and he's fucking tired of it.

So when the fire trucks start wailing and the students start shouting, he marches up to the boy with the cocoa skin and the knife-sharp smile and taps him on the shoulder. Tells him he set his father's lab on fire. Tells him he's stupid. Tells him he wants to be friends. 

He enjoys indulging himself in the fantasy that he's intimidating, that he's scary. Unfortunately, fate and certain physical aspects seem to be against his favour. At five foot five, he's too short to be anything close to be anything other than what he is, and he's not exactly terrifying or fierce or any other synonyms one could come up with. 

He has a slight accent that clips his vowels and rounds his consonants, round, rosy cheeks and soft green eyes. His father's eyes, people say. He wants to believe he has his own eyes, he's his own person. But at fifteen, he certainly seems to be following in his father's footsteps. He's skipped a grade, maybe two, and he's taking almost every possible extra curricular activity he can, spends every spare second in the lab. He's overworked and tired and lonely, but that doesn't matter. He's a genius. And then, sometimes, he doesn't want to be a genius. 

He wants to be great, he wants to be new. He wants original thoughts and something to call his own. He wants forgiveness and a life and fingers in his mouth, and new boots because these ones are getting awfully small. He wants applesauce and peaches. He wants daisies. He wants peace.

The boy with the bitter skin and the sweet, sharp smile extends a hand and laughs. Tells him he talks a lot, and Kuwei agrees. Laughs as well, because Jesper's laugh is infectious.

He wants peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry this is shit but i felt guilty for not updating so i just blitzed this out real quick....  
> please tell me if there are any typos  
> i'll probably update this to be less shit soon enough?  
> yeah uh sorry  
> also i know i don't reply to all the comments, but i most definitely read them all and i most definitely cry (family can testify to this), so, yeah, keep em coming please and thank you xxx  
> and thank you for reading, again, i'm sorry about the shit quality  
> have a lovely day!
> 
> ~ Kinzie


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> french class tends to be eventful when van eck is the professor.

"You set the fucking lab on fire?"

Jesper ignores how messed up it is that Kaz almost sounds impressed, and instead twists his lips in a rueful grin, scrunching his nose.

"Technically, yeah. It was an accident though, I just knocked my lab partner's shit over and it blew up a bit."

"Only a bit," Kaz snorts, settling back in his seat, an expression crossing his face that almost resembles amusement. His lashes flicker, lips twitching upwards at the corners and it almost makes Jesper smile because—he likes to think he did that.

He leans back in his chair, swings his legs onto the desk, a large thud sounding on the wood as his converses land heavily.

Professor Van Eck scowls, eyebrows crushing down on his sharp, flintlock eyes as he glances up from the board, pausing mid-sentence, and his tight lips part over his gleaming teeth in a snarl.

"Mr. Fahey, feet off the desk. And get your folders out, you're in French class, not a zoo. You too Mr. Brekker. Don't make me repeat myself."

Kaz flicks his eyes to the ceiling for a moment, a barely perceptible expression of boredom and exasperation, before reaching down and pulling an impeccably kept, unmarked binder out of his bag, setting it down on the desk along with a single pencil. He grins at Van Eck, teeth sharp and gleaming. Dangerous.

"Of course, Professor."

Jesper snickers under his breath, grabs his bag and tips it upside down, assortment of battered folders and crumpled pieces of paper and god knows what else scattering across the floor. He's sure he has a pencil in there somewhere, or maybe a pen? No matter what the type of writing utensil he'd stuffed in there, it didn't seem to be making an appearance in the mess spread at his feet right now. He hoists it onto his lap, pushing his chair out with a loud scraping noise against the hard floor and plunging an arm into it, fingers grappling at the remnants still clinging to the bottom of the bag. Exhaling heavily, he holds the backpack open with both hands, peering closer into the dark, bottomless abyss in a futile attempt to find something to write with. He might end up having to carve it into his skin, to be honest, if it goes on like this.

"Mr. Fahey, what in God's name are you doing?"

Jesper peers up over the zip of his bag, offering a sheepish smile as though that'll appease the large, bulging vein popping in Van Eck's forehead.

"Trying to find a pen, Professor."

"I'm sure Mr. Brekker can lend you something," Van Eck says, voice a barely controlled growl. The chalk clenched in his white-knuckled fist looks like it's about to snap.

"I only have this one, Professor," Kaz says, eyes glinting with a sharp kind of amusement. He holds up his single pencil between a gloved thumb and a forefinger to demonstrate.

Van Eck glances towards the window, as though he's wondering whether the two story drop is high enough to kill himself. Jesper would offer to find out for him, but—he's got certain things to do that can't be done if he has a broken neck.

"Wylan," he grinds out, his teeth clenched in a false smile. "I'm sure you have something to lend Mr. Fahey here?"

Jesper flicks his gaze over to Wylan, who hunches further into his seat, ears a hot, burning red. He's wearing a blue turtle-neck today, and Jesper makes a mental note to ask him later what his deal with turtle-necks is. Surely no one would wear them voluntarily?

"Y-yes, Professor," Wylan stutters, words stuttered and soft, like he's hoping no one can hear. He unzips his pencil case, pulls out a biro and sets it on his desk, and just stares at it, like he doesn't know what to do with it now.

Professor Van Eck arches an eyebrow, mouth turning down at the corners in disapproval.

"It's not going to float over to him, Wylan. And speak up."

"Yes sir," he mumbles again, and then flinches, like he's realised his mistake.

"Speak. Up," the Professor snaps, words short and punctual. Sharp.

"Yes sir, sorry sir." A bit louder this time. Wylan clutches at the pen, knuckles turning white. He stands up, wincing at the rasping scrape of the chair legs on the floor, dragging his other hand over his slacks as he does. His trainers scuff the floor as he walks, feet dragging with each step. He places the biro on Jesper's desk, hovering there for a second and glancing back up to the professor, who had resumed his droning, monotone lecture.

Van Eck pauses for a moment, hand stilling in midair, hovering over the board.

"Sit down, Wylan, we don't have all day," he snaps, exasperation evident in his tone.

"Right sir, sorry sir." He hurries back to his chair, a rosy, blushing red blooming over the thick arch of his cheek. Jesper almost feels bad for him.

He glances ruefully at the scattered pile of his belongings on the floor, and decides now might not be the best time to mention he'd lost his French folder.

Wylan is still shrunk into his chair, arms folded tightly over his torso as he gazes blankly at the board. Jesper doesn't fail to note that his paper is empty. He looks back at Van Eck, currently scribbling vocabulary on the board in neat, precise print, occasionally pausing in his frantic task to snap at the occasional student.

A sharp prick of something buzzes through Jesper's veins, hot and angry. (He's twelve, and Van Eck is telling him he's different, that his skin sets him apart. He's fourteen, and Van Eck is telling him he's failing him because he's not good enough because his handwriting is too fucking messy, because a C isn't a good enough grade to pass him. He's fifteen and Van Eck has both arms braced either side of his chair and he's spitting in his face, telling him to look at the fucking board and answer the question, asking him why he thinks he's so special, what has he ever done, why can't he just answer the fucking question and—he's seventeen and Wylan looks like he's about to cry.)

He sticks his hand up in the air, leaning until his shoulders hit the back of the chair.

"Yes, Mr. Fahey," the Professor sighs, "You have a question?"

Jesper blinks, squinting at the foreign words on the board for a moment before replying.

"Mm, yeah," he pauses for a moment. "What's asshole in French? Doesn't seem to be in the board."

"Mr. Fahey, that kind of language will not be tolerated, especially when addressing a professor," Van Eck snaps, voice bordering on something vicious, something sharp. He slams the stubby chalk down on his desk, bracing his arms on the wood. "In what scenario, pray tell, do you imagine you'll find yourself in where you will need to use such a word?"

Jesper knows he's pushing too far, knows Van Eck's going to snap but—he glances back at Wylan, the way his lips are quivering in something that could be a smile. Maybe.

"Well," he drawls, picking at his nails, before raising his gaze to meet to the Professor's once more, face splitting in a sweet smile. "I might need it, see, because that's what some people are, and sometimes you gotta tell 'em. Also, you say you're fluent in French, right?

Too far too far too far too far—

He stands up, marching over to the board, snatching the small piece of chalk from the professor's desk as he strides past.

"Mr. Fahey, sit _down_."

It's too far—

"Translate _this_ , sir," he spits, pulling his sleeve over his hand and wiping away the words that had been printed on the board so carefully, replacing them with his own, jagged script. He doesn't know a lot of French, but—it's enough. He throws the chalk down, letting it roll off the desk, and stands away from the board with a triumphant kind of flourish. The class titters nervously as they take in the words scrawled in place of their vocabulary.

_Tu es connard—avec respect, casse-toi, s'il vous plaît._

Van Eck's lips move as he mumbles along to the words now on the board, his face turning an ugly purple as he takes in the meaning and it's too far—

"Detention, Fahey. For the rest of term." His voice is ice.

Jesper gives a mocking bow, ignoring the way his heart hammers against his rib cage, the way he can't _breathe_ — then looks back at Wylan. His cheeks are flushed, round and cheerful, and there's a small laugh he's hiding in his fingers, golden strands of hair falling over his blue eyes. He thinks maybe it was worth it.

* * *

The bell rings, and the relief in the stuffy classroom is almost overbearing as the students let out the shared breath they'd been holding for the last hour and twenty minutes. There's a mad scuffle as everyone collects their things, an uproar—

"Your textbook, class, pages 110 to 112. Since Mr. Fahey has such a broad knowledge of the French language already, he will be doing 110-120."

A collective groan. Wylan thinks he might've heard someone mumble 'casse-toi' under their breath, a snicker.

He shoves his unused pencil into his case, zipping it closed and snapping his binder shut, pushing it into his bag alongside all the other unused folders. He wonders if he packs up quick enough he can escape before—

"Wylan, stay behind for a moment," his father calls from the front if the classroom, hand pausing from wiping the blackboard clean. (It's stupid but—Wylan doesn't know what to call him. Dad? Professor? Father? Doesn't sound right.)

There goes that plan.

"Yessir," he mumbles, all one word. Flinches as he waits for the reprimand he's come to expect— _speak up_. A heavy sigh comes from the front of the room instead, and Wylan shrinks further into his sweater.

"You're not getting better," his father says, leaning forwards in his chair and steepling his fingers, voice cool and detached.

Wylan swallows, throat closing up.

"I'm t-trying," he mumbles, pulling the sleeves of his sweater over his hands, curling his fingers into his palm.

"Try harder," his father snaps, hands now spread flat over the desk, brow creased and eyebrows drawn. "And get your hands out of your shirt, honestly, it makes you look like a child."

"Sorry." Hands out of the sweater. _Breathe_.

His father exhales deeply, unfurling his spine as he stands up, straightening his jacket. He picks up the battered chalk from the desk, holds it to the board and scribbles a sentence, hand moving in neat, precise motions. When he's finished, he moves away from the board, arms folded tightly over his broad chest.

"Tell me what it says."

Wylan's breath catches in his throat, heart stuttering in his ribcage. He wants to press a hand over his chest just to make sure it's still beating, but—not now not now not now. Doesn't matter.

"Ok."

He blinks away the haze clouding his vision, tries to focus on the scattered, jumbled letters spiralling across his vision. God, he could read them if they just stayed still, why won't they stop moving, if they just slowed down—

"Wylan," his father snaps, voice devoid of any mask of patience that had somehow seeped into it earlier. "Tell me. What it. Says."

"Ok."

Breath catching in his throat, can't breathe can't breathe is his heart still beating, can't breathe letters won't stop moving slow down—

"Tell me."

"Ok."

_Ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok._

He wonders if he digs his nails into his palm hard enough it'll be enough to fix him, if pain can break him or mend him, maybe he could _breathe_ —

"You can't." His voice is cool again, clear. Ice.

Wylan closes his eyes, because there's something like fire in his eyes and god knows Professor Van Eck hates crying more than anything else.

"Sorry," he mumbles, wraps his own arms around himself and wishes. (Doesn't know what for, never knows what for. Wishes wishes wishes, for what?) (Answer: something different.) (Answer: impossible. Wrong. Try again.)

His father straightens his tie, brushes an invisible speck of dust off his jacket and wipes his hands on the lapels as though the exchange has dirtied him.

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori," he says, picking up his brief case. "Horace. We'll try again tomorrow."

And he's gone, he's gone he's gone he's gone, and the door swings shut behind him.

Wylan sags, crumpling in his seat, buries his head in his hands.

 _Breathe_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM SO SO SORRY DAEHDWDQSSUEHFSFDQDFSDFADSA I AM A V BAD PERSON I SHOULD'VE UPDATED AGES AGO I AM SO. SORRY.  
> also sorry about the shitty writing in the chapter um yeah hhhh i'm tired ok  
> please point out any typos (:  
> tumblr is @the-girl-who-cried-ship if you wanted to find me there  
> *clears throat* comments and kudos are, as always, treasured with every ounce of energy i can muster,,, please  
> hopefully the next update will come sooner i'm so sorry  
> have a nice day! x
> 
> ~ Kinzie


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some therapy, football and comfort

"That was your dad?" 

Wylan flinches at the sudden voice, knee banging into the desk as he inhales sharply, the inadvertent intake of air burning his throat. He coughs.

"Y-yeah, that would be him. Why?" He's almost proud of the limited amount of stuttering. He twists to see who had spoken, gazing across the room through heavy lashes and—oh. It's Jesper. (Of course it's Jesper, honestly. Who else could it be?)

Jesper snorts, propping himself against the doorframe. "He's a dick, that's all."

Wylan pushes his chair from out of the overhanging ledge of his desk, a harsh grating noise of chair against wood scraping the soft insides of his ears. "Now lets see if you can say that in French."

Wylan's almost surprised by the sharp, honed edge in his voice, the surety of his words. Because for once it's not wavering, it's not dripping between scales and over unexpected notes and octaves, it's just—settled.

Jesper laughs, short and sweet and sharp, the long line of his neck falling back into a graceful arch as he pushes himself off the edge of the door, picking his way between desks to examine the etched words on the blackboard more closely.

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori," he reads, narrowing his eyes as he props himself up against the professor's desk, sweeping aside a few stray pieces of paper and wrapping his fingers around the edge of the wood. "The fuck's that supposed to mean?"

Wylan shrugs, picking at a seam in the worn wood in forms of him, running the nail of his thumb through the crease. "It's Horace." 

"Fuckin' Horace," Jesper mutters, words bitten off and heavy.

Wylan jerks his head sharply, leaning down from his chair to zip up his backpack from where it had spilled open, fingers deftly fiddling with the rough fabric. "Why're you here?"

"Oh," Jesper exclaims suddenly, twisting his head to fix his heavy-lashed gaze on Wylan. "Yeah, almost forgot. I don't get the Chem. homework."

Wylan twists his eyebrow, quirking his lips. "We didn't get any Chem. You set the lab on fire, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah I know. It's the other homework. Plus, it was technically your fault." Jesters shrugs his denim edged shoulders, twisting his torso around fully to face Wylan.

Wylan's eyes flick back into his head at Jesper's childish jibe, smoothing the mess off his chipped desk and folding his arms across his green chest.

"Come on. I'll help."

* *

Matthias can't count how many afternoons he'd spent here. 'Here' being the wide, open pitch scored with white lines and grids and faint outlines of spiked shoes stamped into the shorn grass, because god knows this sport is anything but gentle. The point still stands though- this sport is anything but gentle, and Matthias has spent more than one too many afternoons with shoulder pads pressed too close to his hard, aching bones, and too many hours with sweat drawing blue fabric closer to his hollow chest and suffocating him. (So maybe he's being dramatic. Or maybe he's that easy to suffocate, who knows.)

"Helvar! Eyes on the ball!"

Matthias tugs a hand through his hair, clearing it out of his eyes until the field comes into focus beyond the icy halo ringing his face, until he can see more than just shapeless blue and white forms tumbling over green. Feels like he's looking through a window.

It's not a ball, he wants to say. Balls are round, he wants to say. That isn't fucking round. (He isn't fucking around. Jokes, ha.)

But he looks up anyway, acknowledges the coach with a swift jerk off his chin and digs his spiked shoes further into the short, regulated stems of grass, like if he hooks on and anchors himself to the earth by his heels he won't have to move. A useless effort, he concedes as Coach Brum barks another order, eyebrows cutting a fierce angle across his carved face. 

Unhooking his feet, Matthias forces his weary legs into action, digging blunt nails into his palms and willing his exhausted muscles onwards. He slams himself into another boy, with ice in his hair and eyes and frozen over his skin, and hopes he at least had the ball. His eyes stay on the thin thread of the green horizon as he heaves himself to his feet, keeps running. (Sometimes, it feels like he never stops.) (Sometimes.)

It should keep Coach Brum from blowing his whistle for now.

* * *

Kaz dips his head, pulls his hat further over his eyes and scowls, mouth tugging down at the corners.

"Is this really necessary?" He growls, a cold kind of disgruntlement twisting through his bitten words.

Anya closes the door behind him as he enters the stuffy room, steps brisk and sharp, cut clean and harsh. To anyone watching, he's the one in control. She's the prey. (He can imagine the talk tomorrow. Probably something about him fucking the school nurse, or a similar theory. Come to think of it, blackmail is the more likely candidate in this toss-up of wild rumours. Anything but the infamous Kaz Brekker needing therapy.)

"Kaz-" She starts, her voice thick and honeyed, hanging in the space between her whiskey eyes. "As the school nurse, its my job to make sure the health of every student is stable and sufficient. That includes mental health. Your parents-"

"Foster parents." He swaps his cane to the other hand, gripping at it so tight he think his fingers might shatter. No, not his fingers; the cane might, but Kaz Brekker does not break.

"Foster parents," Anya amends, spreading her snowy palms in a gesture of apology. She settles herself down on the red, plush leather sofa, reaching for her mug of cocoa, probably cold by now. Half of the school's budget was probably swallowed by her office, Kaz speculates, sweeping his gaze over the house plants and posters decorating the richly furnished room. "Would you like to sit down?"

It's not a question, even if its phrased as one, because why would anyone ever give a teenager a choice? Well. He's going to make one anyway.

"No, thank you." He smiles, cool and collected, lips a cold, scaled snake twisting it's way over his bones.

Anya shrugs her slim shoulders, sips from the crusted rim of her mug before setting it down firmly on the gleaming coffee table dividing. He thinks she might be choking back a gag, and the white column of her slender neck bobs.

"If thats what you prefer."

Kaz's eyebrow dip even lower on his creased forehead, and he wants to snarl, wants to become a wolf or a—or a snake, or something that can rip out her unblemished throat and make her bleed. As if it's not already enough that she forces her 'patients' to refer to her by her first name instead of 'Miss', or a similar title like all the other teachers, gentle condescension isn't something he appreciates being added to the package.

"So-" A pause as she clears her throat, straightening her spine. "I'd like to start with a question, Kaz. Nothing invasive, I just need you to answer as honestly as possible. Ok?"

Kaz presses his lips into a line, stretched taught in a narrow, tense thread.

Anya exhales heavily, pulls out a notepad and pencil, god knows where from.

"First of all, why would you say you have an aversion to touch?"

'Nothing invasive'. Ha.

He runs the rim of his lower lip through his needle teeth, straightens one of his lapels and smiles. Tries to think of anything but bodies and moonlight and knives, anything but boys he knows who're no more and boys he doesn't who still are. Tells himself he succeeded.

He flicks his eyes to the right, heavy charcoal lashes overhanging his heavy gaze, swallows past the knife in his throat and the fingers grasping at his delicate breath and inhales. He needs an answer. (Of course, not the right answer—not the one they're looking for, obviously. Some clever jibe, perhaps a discreet lunge at Anya to turn this around.)

Curls his fingers into his palms, digs hard enough to feel the sharp bite of pain through his thick, ashy gloves and breathes.

"Anya?"

A knock on the door. A tremulous, wavering voice, falling and rising over the two, small syllables. Joost. The janitor, Kaz's brain tells him, and he exhales. Relaxes his death grip on the cane for a second (just for a second). 

"Is this a bad time?" Joost's rounded, infantile face peers around the door, like a petulant child pleading entry to a forbidden room in the house. His cheeks crush up against his eyes as his mouth curls into a shy, bashful smile. 

See, everyone at Ketterdam knows the deal between Joost the janitor and Anya the student counsellor—a possibly less than professional relationship, as the teachers prefer to call to it, most often accompanied with twisted lips and a disdainful arch of an eyebrow.

Anya's eyes gleam, warm and sweet as a rosy blush smatters across her arched cheekbones.

"Not at all." She smoothes the pleat of her pencil skirt, folds her legs over each other and straightens her spine, flicking a loose coil of brassy hair over her shoulder. Kaz fights the urge to roll his eyes. So much for therapy.

"I brought more coffee, n' some cookies. Your favourite." Joost slips through the door, holding a tray laden with a fresh blue mug and a neatly stacked pile of baked goods in his white-knuckled fingers. His feet twist in the plush carpet, gaze eagerly fixed on the planes of Anya's marble features as he waits expectantly for her approval. God, it's like watching a dog with a bone. 

"How kind of you," Anya purrs, tipping her head to the left so her hair falls just so, clasping her hands in her lap. "Kaz and I were just finishing up anyway."

"Sure." Kaz tightens his grip on the smooth slide of the cane between his knuckles, slips out of the door and lets their voices fade into nothing more than white noise as Joost sets the tray down, wipes his palms on his oversized coveralls.

And he's outside now, in the blessedly empty corridor. He's bracing hand against the outside wall and trying to dig his nails into the cold, blank wall. Trying to make a mark, or a dent or a scratch or just something to prove he was there, and—maybe it worked this time. If not, he'll try again the next time, and the next and the next and the next until he's forgotten Anya's pinned together voice and Joost's butterfly heart falling apart in his rib cage. Tells himself loneliness is only felt by humans, that monsters are better off with their immortality and hollow rib cage. Calls himself a monster because it's better than the alternative, because he can't hear anything rattling in his concave chest so it may as well be empty. (He may as well be empty.)

* * 

There's a girl at the edge of the football pitch.

Rephrase—there's a salvation hovering just beyond the studs of Matthias's feet, and if he moves closer he's going to crush her. Rephrase—she's going to crush him, or someone's going to crush something and it can't be his heart because that's already gone. So he turns, kicks the ball as far as he can to the other side of the pitch, because—because they all know how this ends. Because loving her leaves him dead and her dead, and everyone around them dead so it's better if they just don't.

Because he knows how easy it is to fall into the valleys of evergreen hips, to put his lips to a foreign tongue instead of a bottle and call her a vision because they all know she can't last and—it's a paradox.

Remember loving like a knife on the tongue turning into a tongue, and a circle chasing its own end. Loving without bounds and without rules until the law was broken, until it begged them to return only to tear them apart, and loving with mocking bird wings beating against four gunpowder walls until the wings and the paint were blurred into knives, until their blood was the same colour as the sky.

So let the girl with the everlasting eyes cry herself to sleep, let her stand at the edge of football pitches and cliffs until she falls, and let him keep kicking balls that aren't round in circles, because at least that makes sense. At least it's easier that way, and at least he can call a cross over his blacked-out eyes enough. Let's say anything can last until it doesn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so it's exam season m sorry it's me coming to you from hell week adsfhdha save me  
> i promise i have a plot i?? i'm just having a hard time getting there ffff  
> if there are any typos please point them out (:  
> tumblr is [here](https://the-girl-who-cried-ship.tumblr.com) please come scream at me  
> comments and kudos give me liiiiffffe please come lift my self esteem out of purgatory  
> have a lovely week!
> 
> ~ Kinzie


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a snapshot of nina and matthias's relationship, before they broke up and after.

It's funny how much six months can change a person, Matthias thinks, sharp and bitter. His knuckles are white as they clench over the driving wheel, skin stretched tight over his bones as he twists the wheel sharply, almost out of breath as the rush in his ears deafens the silence of the hollow vein of the highway at midnight, air ripping through his throats as a knife. Roads at night are a strange phenomenon; a hollow in the landscape, designed only to be filled, suddenly empty.

There's something of a fire to the night on this highway; something of the sun, of a heart still beating through the salt-rain. And there's anger in these stars, in these drains of heaven tonight. Or maybe there's anger in him—not maybe, there is. A hot itch in his fingers, shackled to the wheel as he thinks of punching through the windshield into the horizon that isn't there, of the shards of glass in between the slide of moonlight and night sky, torn into pieces.

He wants to rip apart this silent twilight with his bare hands, with his teeth and his nails and his wild, beating heart, his unbreakable youth. He settles for the roar of his father’s car instead. It's a harsh, screeching sound of rubber on moon-slick concrete that cracks the silence apart like an overripe fruit, fallen from a tree already caught in the throes of Autumn’s breath. It's a hand on his shoulder, fingers curling around the soft fabric of his sleep-shirt that makes him feel alive.

“Matthias,” Nina says, her breath a hot coil at the edge of his ear and she leans over from the passenger seat, listing to the side as she half-trembles with the speed of their flight. (These are wings of steel and gasoline, made only to burn.) “You're going too fast.”

Matthias snarls, the sound curdling in his throat and curling over his tongue, twisting in the rush of air in the car as he pulls into the break-down lane, slamming on the breaks as they screech to a halt, rocking his torso forwards as his hands brace against the dashboard, breath coming in quick pants through his teeth.

“Fuck,” he hisses, swiping the back of his palm across his forehead in a swift, precise movement, cut short and swift.

“Matthias,” Nina says again, fingers still hovering on his shoulder. Her voice is softer now, sort of sweet and sad, like a love song. Forlorn and lovely at the same time, and it's funny because they both know that Nina can't carry a tune to save her life. “What did they say?”

 _They_. It's kind of an unspoken agreement between them that Matthias’s parents remain nameless, stay a featureless ‘them’ lest they become too real, lest _they_ become more than just that.

Matthias swipes his tongue over his lips, swallowing as though that'll dislodge the knife caught in his throat, the tip pressed against his ribcage.

“The usual.”

“Don't lie,” Nina half snaps, and even though he doesn't look to see her, he knows her eyes are narrowed, rose lips pressed into a line as they curl downwards. They both know that if it were the usual Matthias wouldn't react as strongly as this, but—driving to your girlfriends house at midnight only to break the speed limit in your father’s car didn't quite comply the definition of ‘the usual’, even for Matthias.

“Told me to get over this artsy phase, etc.” His fingers curl into his palm on the dashboard, cutting half-crescents in his skin; half a moon, always waning. “Once I get out of this fucking fad I might actually be able to make something out of myself, after all, I'm only doing this to be fucking cool.”

These words don't sound like his own on his lips, and he wants something else instead, something original and new and brave and more than he can hold. His eyes flick sideways underneath his lashes, catching on the curve of Nina’s overlarge jacket, steeped in moonlight. His jacket. Her jacket. _Their_ jacket.

“They want me to get my letterman jacket back from you,” he says, the words rushing over his tongue and hanging hot and heavy in the cool midnight air. “They said a real girl should be wearing it, not some—some—”

“Whore,” Nina finishes quietly, her voice an echo of a song, something forgotten. Matthias winces.

“You're not,” he says, and the knife in his throat presses harder to his ribs, hanging above his heart. “You're not.

Her fingers, long and nimble and edged in silver in this half-moon, playing at the edge of his (her) jacket wrapped around her shoulders, hair falling in inky brushstrokes over the crescent of her face. She tugs at a sleeve, shrugging it off her back in a smooth, fluid motion, her sweeping lashes still a veil over her evergreen eyes. Matthias starts in protest, heart pressed to the apex of his throat, but she makes a small sound of assurance, full lips falling into an open comma. Pause.

Seeing her without his jacket makes Matthias want to cry a bit, for some absurd reason, because—it's her jacket, _their_ jacket. Her shoulders are quicksilver in the moonlight shifting under the liquid light, sliding through the passenger window and catching on her ivory skin. She lifts the edge of her shirt, her torso smooth and soft and almost holy in this light. Her eyes catch on his in the secret of midnight, and his breath shudders to a stop in his throat as she lifts the shirt too, tossing it aside to fall in a crumpled heap over the jacket, shapeless without her form.

“What are you–” he starts, voice cracked and cut to the quick, fingernails on chalkboards.

“Just watch,” she murmurs, one arm reaching around her torso to the back of her bra, shadows shifting and rearranging with her movement. She unhooks it, the straps sliding down her shoulders before she carelessly deposits it, leaving her bare in the moonlight, in this hollow vein of the highway.

Nina reaches for the jacket, shrugging it over her shoulders once more and looking up at him through heavy, silver lashes, her eyes almost ethereal in this light. In any light. Matthias forgets to breathe.”

“No other girl’s ever going to look as pretty in this jacket as I do, you hear me?”

He swallows, breath a brand between his teeth.

“No one else,” he whispers hoarsely, eyes catching on the soft curve of her breast, the shadows spilling over the satin of her skin. He wants to carve her out, set her in stone for everyone to see like this, lovely and immortal even though those things never go hand in hand.

He reaches for her in the moonlight, shadows spilling from his throat like ink and he wants it to stay, make this last or let this moon never wane, let it stay the curve in Nina’s smile and the swell in her breast, and the arch of their hands, twined as unbreakable American youth. _Make this last_.

Her legs part slightly to allow him in, her warm, heavy weight settling over him as a shroud because they both know she's going to be the death of him. He nuzzles at the long line of her jaw and she tips her head back as his teeth scrape against the skin over the ridge of Nina's collar, and she shifts under him, fingers twining in his hair as she presses him closer into the sweet hollow of her neck. Her hair is a shield over her face as it slides over her shoulder, liquid silver in the moonlight. Come dawn, there's going to be a bruise on her collar, he's going to leave a mark because she's _his,_ so he's hers and this is going to last.

Then again—it's funny how much six months can change a person.

 

* * *

Matthias sees her in the corridors sometimes, and that hurts. This hurts, this tarnished youth that he wishes he could shatter, her heart and his in pieces, spilling out of the remnants of crumbled rib cages because they were too wild to remain behind bone. They were caught up in the ideal of freedom, of bright and shining love and the idea that it was _enough_ , because it wasn't.

They still have language arts together on a Tuesday, except they don't sit next to each other and when she writes she doesn't smirk at him with the corner of her mouth twisted ever so slightly, he doesn't catch her eye and she doesn't laugh because why should she? He doesn't laugh either.

It's funny that he can still remember the first time they kissed. Funny, because yesterday is already a blur and yet this is clearer than anything else in his mind and he hates it.

But he remembers, because Nina had told him to stop being so dramatic, to get over there and kiss her already, and she told him she loved him and he said something about war. Truce, Nina said. Truce. Matthias agreed, because peace is just an idolised version of war, and truce is close enough. And he wanted to explore her body, wanted to explore the thousands of roots spreading across her ivory skin, and kiss the blue veins brushed underneath transparent flesh. Matthias thought she was like a window covered in frost. A window when dawn comes and the sun shines through it so bright, illuminates everything in gold, in white. In copper. He thought there was a sun inside her. The thing is, it felt like Nina could see right through him, right to his bones, see something dark and fist sized beating against his rib cage, and see the palace she built there.

It's funny.

She avoids his gaze in the corridor, and his fingers dig into his palm as he imagines her throat between his fingers instead of his own flesh, and thinks of anything but kissing her, anything but the sun still trapped in her chest. He still dreams of her, of Summer and Autumn and all the seasons they almost had, all the seasons that withered into death because a season will always grow until it stops, because anything that stops growing will start to die. He's dying.

Correction: he's dying to know her as intimately as his ribcage knows the battlefield, dying for something other than life, dying to know the reason or a rhyme or something that makes _sense_ , a love song even though it may as well just be sounds. He's dying for life, for love he never had.

Nina still wears his jacket sometimes, and it makes him want to be sick, because she has no _right_ , she has no claim to what she stills clings to so desperately, no right to hold his heart as tight as she does because it hurts now, he wants her to stop. Wants his heart to stop, her heart to stop, their hearts to stop in tandem until their minds are the only things still racing and it's lightning with no thunder in between.

Correction: it's only sparks, not lightning and he'll live because his heart is still beating after all, because he checks every so often just to make sure because sometimes he feels he may as well be dead.

Its Nina's fault when he thinks about it. Nina's fault that his parents now slide him sideways glances whenever they think he isn't looking, it's her fault that they now hide every razor or blade they can find and it's her fault, it's all fucking _her_ fault.

Here's a dream, looping around in his head like a song, a reprise. It's back again tonight; it finds him somewhere between closed eyelids and sheets and arches of bones and muscles he hasn't felt in so long, somewhere he's almost forgotten. Somewhere he once was, somewhere that used to be _here_. Matthias was still here once.

It's Nina, because—it's always Nina. Her face is smooth, polished silver. Unbreakable twilight.

In this dream—this memory—he laughs like summer and kisses the back of her wrist as he presses them towards the endless horizon, smiling like he hasn't already ruined everything lovely just to get this far. He's looking at her like they're both going to melt, like the spears of sunlight are more than just that. It's more than just a metaphor, because these golden curls and his copper smile have to mean more than just this, because they're all-American youth and it's not enough. Then:

"I have so much to tell you," she says.

 _Me too_ , he wants to say. He's choking on sunlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK SO IM AN AWFUL PERSON FOR NOT UPDATING IM SO SORRY AND IM SORRY ABOUT HOW SHORT THIS CHAPTER IS IM SO. SORRY.  
> i orinigally posted this separately and then i took it down bc a) no one read it and b) it makes more sense as just one thing  
> i hope it was ok?  
> sorry. again.  
> also it was supposed to be vague idk i'll get to the reason they broke up later just you wait  
> hope you all have a lovely day! comment or kudos or something if you enjoyed, thanks for reading (:  
> tumblr is @the-girl-who-cried-ship
> 
> ~ Kinzie


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> everyone gets drunk. do not try at home.

Jesper swills the warm dregs of amber beer around in his cup, wrinkling his nose in distaste at the cheap stench of discount alcohol clouding the air. He doesn’t really want to be at this party, when he thinks about it; but to be honest, no one really does. No one really likes Pim, or cares about their party or their birthday or their fucking life and yeah, maybe Jesper's being a dick right now but it’s true. Pim's not exactly the most well-liked member of Ketterdam High, but no one really is. In eighth grade, Pim skipped Physics to smoke pot outside the window. Everyone could smell the fumes, but there wasn’t enough evidence, the school said. Or there was too much evidence, and also too much money from Pim's parents to refuse. So yeah. Jesper doesn’t want to be here.

But he downs the rest of his beer anyway, half of it slopping over the side in a cheap shine of alcohol. He pushes himself away from the wall for a refill, ignoring the boy slumped next to him. Matthias, Jesper thinks his name is. Quarterback. Used to date Nina. Ugly breakup. Who cares?

*

Matthias sways slightly, his entire vision blurring to the left in a dazed smear of lights and people and thumping bass, the alcohol on his breath sharpening into knives in the back of his throat. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing here. Slumped against a wall in the back of a party, with one of his knees half pulled up and an amber spill of beer shining next to him in a brilliant crush of youth and liquid gold. But he’s never really liked alcohol all that much anyway, and for all its lustre he knows someone’s going to slip in that puddle sooner or later. Fuck. He should probably clean it up.

Later, he decides, as a couple collides with the wall next to him, a girl's green party dress rucking up to her hips as the boy slides a hand along the brown expanse of her thigh, her leg wrapped around his waist and his arm bracing them against the chipped plaster. Matthias knows the girl, actually – her name's Annika, and in Spanish she rolls her 'r's too much and it always sounds like she has an earthquake trapped in her stomach, trembling on her tongue.

To be honest, Matthias wouldn’t particularly mind she and her boy slipped on that beer, and the earthquake in Annika's throat is rushing straight onto the boy’s tongue, and they’re shattering and breaking apart against the wall, tearing the fucking house down and Matthias should probably do something. But he doesn’t and he won’t.

He leaves them to their private earthquake, pushing himself off the wall with two braced palms, and he thinks he might’ve forgotten to straighten one leg because he’s strangely lopsided now, and it doesn’t really make sense because he’s doing this half kind of hobble thing, and he should really straighten his fucking leg.

There's another girl in his line of sight, and it’s not Annika. He’s kind of wishing it was though, because this is so much worse than Annika and her green dress and earthquakes, this is a different kind of green and it’s always too much.

Nina's lips are open, rose petals falling apart on her tongue and he wants to rip them in two. Matthias' vision sharpens, the knives in his throat spilling out in a noiseless question, and she’s wearing his letterman jacket. Or, she’s wearing more than just his jacket, which isn’t fair but he shouldn’t care about what she does and he doesn’t. Really. But he starts towards her anyway, because suddenly it’s six months ago and he’s sixteen and in love and Nina's smiles are still for him, she still wears their jacket for him and he’s the only one who’s ever seen her so fragile, so utterly breakable.

Her lips thin into a white hyphen when she’s sees him, because he’s seventeen again and it’s been six months and she’s not here for him so he pauses. Then Nina runs a finger over the seam of their jacket, and he presses play on his heart and the music and the pulse in his ears, because it might be six months later but it’s still their jacket. Or maybe he had too much to drink. Anyway.

He almost lurches towards her, something reeling him in, fish hooks caught in his lip from her eyes, green-green-green against the angry crowd of teenagers. She doesn’t really want to talk to him, he doesn’t think, but – that doesn’t matter, she doesn’t matter. Or she shouldn’t, but she does and it kills him.

"Matthias," she says, or he thinks she says, He can’t really hear anything over his own blood rushing in his ears, the deafening sway of his pulse. He's reading her lips, red despite her green eyes and her burnt hair and she’s entire forest, bloody with kill. He doesn’t really know what but something's bleeding, or it has been and it’s like that movie where the man shoots the deer and doesn’t even bring it home, and it’s stuck in his head. His tongue's a lit match in his mouth, blazing between his teeth.

"I wanna talk to you," he slurs, words melting in a messy slush of syllables and consonants, a crush of red petals and beer.

Nina's eyes flicker back in her head briefly as a boy slings an arm over Nina's torso, nuzzling at her neck and she shrugs him off like he’s nothing, because he is. But there’s still something curdling in Matthias' stomach, knives sharpening against his ribs.

"Later, Matthias." And they both know that’s a lie. They both know it’s fake and her words are coated in the same sugar she dusts on her smile, and he wants to scream.

"No," he snaps, and his hands are closed on her wrist now and he doesn’t know when that happened but damnit, he really needs to fucking talk to her. "Now."

He's tugging at her wrist, fingers slipping to her palm and into her fingers, and it hurts how alive she feels right now, how utterly unchanged. Because the last time he held her hand was six months ago, and it feels like looking into a mirror and shattering all the glass for no reason, and it hurts, an ache in his lungs, broken glass in his eyes. He really wishes he could breathe. And they’re outside, or – not outside but out of the music, out of the heavy bass in a blessedly empty corridor.

"You're drunk," she says, yanking her arm away and backing a few paces away from him, her arms folded over her chest.

"Fuck you." Fuck. He didn’t mean to say that. _Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck_. (He has that word stuck in his head today. Can’t seem to stop saying it. _Fuck_.)

Her forehead wrinkles, silk skin creasing into valleys and he wants to kiss that expression away or – no, no he doesn’t he wants to hurt her. He thinks. Fuck. He shouldn’t have said anything at all, _fuck_.

"What?" Nina steps back once more, a single brow pulled into a sharp arch.

"Sorry. Fuck. I don’t– Fuck." Ah, yes. Good job, Matthias. Very eloquent.

Nina rolls her eyes, flicking a few strands of hair away from her face. And he’s suddenly struck by how achingly tired she looks; the purple bruises hanging beneath her eyes, the tremor in her fingers and the sway in her gait. Matthias doesn’t know how he hasn’t seen it before. But she is.

"What do you want Matthias?" She says, her voice cracking a bit half-way through. A punched-in mirror.

He half-shrugs, curling into himself a little, arms hanging lax at his side. His gaze flickers to the floor, eyelids sliding shut for a few moments and he thinks he might pass out soon. Or later. Fuck, it’s been so long. He doesn’t know why he wanted to talk to her, to be honest. Fuck. He should stop saying that. Fuck.

"Why?" He almost whispers, words hoarse and trembling from his lips. A question. An answer. Both.

"I don’t want to talk about this now, Matthias," she says, and his name doesn’t sound like a prayer anymore. Because it used to. She used to say it like she was reading a poem, or something holy or both, everything at once and it’s too much. And the thing is she knows what he’s asking without him saying, and he still misses that.

"When, Nina?" He snaps, the match between his teeth sparking again. "In another six months? It’s a simple question. Fuck you." He shouldn’t have said that. _God_.

Her eyes glint, something vulnerable sliding over her features for a second, something gone too quickly for him to define. And there’s that, too – he wishes he could define her, slap a meaning on her and be done but he can’t. She’s always been to big to have a definition, too lovely and new and more than anyone could ever hold.

"If you can’t hold a conversation for more than a minute without swearing at me, then you’re clearly too drunk to have a conversation at all," she says coldly, her tone dripping with contempt. That he can define, and god he hopes it’s not real. He doesn’t think he could stand that.

"Sorry." And he says it like he means the opposite, and jesus he needs to fucking stop. _Jesus_.

Nina turns to go, pulling her jacket – their jacket – tighter around her shoulders, and something inside him tightens, a crank twisting in his stomach. Her hair's clinging to the nape of her neck, dark with sweat and in this light it looks almost ebony.

"Wait," he calls and she stops for some reason, and somehow he’s caught up with her but he doesn’t really remember his feet moving and he wonders if he’s still lopsided. Probably.

He’s only a few centimetres away from her now and she still hasn’t turned around but– this is closest he’s been to her in six fucking months, and he thinks he can feel something like fire, something like brimstone burning in his eye. The crank in his stomach twists tighter, and he almost doubles over, lungs suddenly airless and empty. And maybe it’s always been like this, maybe his lungs have never really been full and it’s only when he’s with Nina he remembers to breathe. And he really should. Breathe, that is. It’s been a while.

She’s still standing there, her back to him, but he can hear her breathing, cutting through the static brewing in his ears. He rests two fingers on her shoulder, a touch barely there, half-alive with fear and hope and something bright and renewed. He thinks of phoenixes. Catches alight. Air stutters half-way out of Nina's throat, and he wants to breathe so badly, fuck, he just needs to breathe. But – he can’t. Not like this. His other hand brushes along her side tracing along the seam in the side of their jacket, settling on her waist and he feels so desperately, painfully alive.

Her hair's still caught at the nape of her neck, and it’s almost infuriating. It is. Fuck. He leans a bit closer, a sudden waft of lemons and sugar catching in his nose, and he almost keels over. But steadies himself, his forehead pressed flush with the back of her head, and it’s been so long since he was this close to anyone. Not anyone. _Nina_.

"You use the same shampoo," he half whispers, voice sticking in his throat. He almost has to spit the words out, but they melt into her skin in a low slide of breath, and despite the beer he’s suddenly thinking clearly, everything achingly sharp and alive with Nina this close to him.

Nina kind of shivers, a small noise catching in the back of her throat, and Matthias shifts forward a few precious millimetres. His lips brush against her neck, a sudden raw, honest shift of bare skin, and he feels somehow exposed, stripped naked in this darkening corridor. He can still hear the bass in the next room, thumping far too loud or – maybe that’s his heart, jumping against his ribcage, and he wants to let it out. He pulls her closer to him, lips pressing more insistently, mouthing at the stray strands of hair finally unstuck from her neck.

"Matthias . . ." It sounds more holy this time, more like a prayer and it’s not six months ago but it’s now and that’s what matters.

She tastes sweet, warm and lovely and alive beneath his tongue, and suddenly she’s turned around and she’s facing him, both of her green, green eyes blown wide and he did that. Her lashes are almost too dark like this as her eyelids slip shut, a smear of charcoal smudged above the arch of her cheeks. And his eyes are closed too now, hand still wrapped around her waist and the other tangled in her hair, warm and silky and real between his fingers, and she’s kissing him and – he can finally breathe.

* *

Jesper's had too much to drink. Or, he’s just a lightweight. Or both. Or neither. Maybe he’s naturally high. And he almost laughs at that, because it’d be just like him to be naturally high – high on life, his mother used to say. A joke he didn’t really get until a few years ago. Too late then, anyway. This time he really does laugh, for no reason at all other than to do it, a bitter, sharp spill of almost-joy hanging in the air for a few moments.

Kaz gives him a strange look from under his steep brows, dark gaze sliding towards him. (He really would look good in charcoal, Jesper thinks. Then changes his mind. Too easy to smudge.) Jesper quells his laughter, attempting to straighten the curved bow of his lips under Kaz's cynical gaze.

"Next time we go to a party," Kaz says, words somehow achingly sharp over the music, "Drink less."

And Jesper laughs again, because why not? Ha. _Drink less_.

"Would you rather me not drink at all, oh prudent one?"

"If it means your jokes would improve, yes."

"Loosen up, amigo," Jesper crows, swinging an arm over Kaz's shoulder, fingers brushing against the smooth, milky skin peeking above his collar. Which is a mistake. Obviously. (But Jesper is a mistake. Quite literally, his dad forgot to wear a condom and voíla; the greatest gift to humanity was born.) He can feel Kaz stiffening beneath him muscles tensing and coiling in a stiff clench of agonised paralysis. But to touch Kaz – fuck, Jesper can hardly think straight – not when he’s this close, not without the false jump of his pulse from under his jacket, heart jumping in his throat. Jesper's eyes slip shut for a moment and he lists into Kaz's side, and – god, did his hand always have this many nerve endings? Fuck. Maybe he just has a hypersensitive hand. Or Kaz has a very pleasurable neck. Probably. _Fuck_.

Kaz shrugs him off abruptly, and Jesper stumbles, a sudden emptiness clenching beneath his fingers. He staggers for what he thinks is the wall, scrabbling for purchase against the rough brick, and he’s made another mistake.

"Find your own way home," Kaz says, turning away and brushing the smudges of Jesper's touch off of his spotless jacket, a faint tremble shattering apart his usually collected words into fragments. He pauses, and for half an airless moment, Jesper thinks he’s going to come back. But he doesn’t. Instead, his twists his head slightly to look over his shoulder, shooting Jesper a withering look. "Next time, don’t drink so much."

* * *

Nina pulls away, breath heaving in her chest and _God_ , what was she thinking? Matthias lists towards her, eyes still closed and something in her almost snaps. Almost. She steps away, a sudden emptiness tightening between her ribs, a painful ache she'd almost grown used to in the six months away from him.

"I need to go," she says, words full of air and empty promise.

And she’s gone before Matthias can even open his eyes, disappearing into the pounding bass and the swarm of sweaty, intoxicated teenagers. She almost looks back, but – best if she doesn’t.

She doesn’t see her exit wound; the bullet-hole left in the shape of a boy with airless lungs and punched-in eyes, cheap beer and loss trapped in his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for not updating. etc. i’m a shitty person with no excuse.  
> also i have no idea what to feel about this chapter?? any and all feedback would be great bc i’m thinking of taking this down and just rewriting but idk sorry thank you guys so much for reading xx  
> and thank you for your patience you lovely people (:  
> fun fact i wrote this in an hour while listening to don’t cry for me argentina on loop which is a gooooorgggeoous song
> 
> ~ Kinzie


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone finally gets dirt on Kaz, and Jesper takes off his shirt.

It's not a big deal. Really, it's not. It just wasn't what Kuwei needed to hear today. Today, with his binder cutting too deep into his flesh and his voice too high and clear and jawline soft and hips too wide and– it just wasn't what he needed.

He blinks, glances down at his desk and runs a fingernail through the hairline cracks, something brimming at the edge of his eye. He scrubs it away hastily, because honestly he doesn't need that too today. Boys don't cry, they say. They say a lot of things. What's he supposed to think? (Nothing. He's supposed to be brainwashed, skirts and lipsticks and heels and laughing too shrill to be real. Of course.)

"So, as Ms. Yul-Bo so kindly pointed out for us–"

And a voice, from the corner of the classroom. Sharp, cutting. Electrifying in the still of the classroom.

"Uh, Mr Brum?"

Mr. Brum swivels on his heel with a loud squeak on the linoleum floor, glancing over his shoulder at Jesper, whiskery beard twitching in dislike. "Yes, Mr. Fahey? Keep it brief please this time, if you don't mind. You've already wasted enough of our class I think with your . . . antics."

A collective titter arises from their assorted peers, the image of Jesper tap dancing a circle around Mr. Brum's desk still a memory too fresh to ignore in many's minds.

But Jesper doesn't smile this time, instead his brow creasing further and pressing down into his eyes, bright and quick.

"It's Mr. Bul-Yo. You know that."

It's an accusatory tone, a snarl almost– a flash of Jesper's too-white teeth gleaming in the space between his lips. Too sharp. Of course.

Mr Brum rolls his eyes almost imperceptibly, but it's all too noticeable if you're looking for it. Which Kuwei is. And it hurts.

He braces his hands on the desk, fingers curling into fists and cutting little half-moons onto his palm, white against red. It's like being six again. Sitting on his father's knee, grinning soft and lazy and telling him when he grew up, he wanted to be a real boy. And then he's fifteen surrounded by two years of competition, and something he doesn't want. He doesn't want this.

He scrapes his chair away, standing up and mumbles something about the bathroom, people murmuring and people whispering and he doesn't need this today, he really doesn't. Mr. Brum repeating that name, that name he doesn't want he never asked for and his voice is like a train Kuwei can never stop. If he was born right things would be ok. Because he's not like this naturally. Naturally, he has a chest and hips and a monthly blessing of blood and a girl living on the surface, smiling at him with lipstick and skirts, saying, this is all you get. No trades. No swapping parts for parts.

And he's sitting in a toilet cubicle, back pressed to the door and door pressed to the world and he wishes he could tear this apart, because wouldn't it be nice to have that control? If he didn't have a body things would be easier. And boys don't cry, but maybe he is, fire down his cheeks and this is the greatest tragedy he can think of.

"Kuwei you piece of shit, open the door or I'll knock it down."

Jesper. Of course. The only person who can lovingly cuss you out. Kuwei sniffs, a long, deep, rattling breath sucking into his lungs. Binder crushing into his ribs.

"Fuck off. I'm taking a piss, alright?"

"Like hell you are. Open the door, or I'll call Inej. She'll kick the door down."

He tucks up his knees further into his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs.

"No."

A face appears at the crack of the stall door, Jesper's gleaming grin glinting at him from the linoleum floor.

"Hi."

A faint, choked laugh escapes from Kuwei, and he swipes away a stray tear with the back of his palm.

"What are you doing?"

"If you won't let me in, I'll just have to talk to you like this," Jesper says in a solemn, somber tone, his mouth settling into a straight line.

"Invasive asshole."

Kuwei unfolds himself, reaches for the bathroom lock and slides it open, kicking the door wide into the space he assumes Jesper must be with his cheek pressed right to the floor.

"Ow! Fuck," Jesper grunts, rolling away from the stall and curling up on himself, clutching at his nose. "That was uncalled for."

"Sorry," Kuwei shrugs tucking his hands into his pockets and grinning.

Jesper stands up, dusting his hands off on his worn jeans. "Alright. You're out. Take off your shirt."

"What?" Kuwei frowns, brow crumpling, crossing his arms defensively over his chest. "No."

Jesper rolls his eyes, rumples his mass of hair and sighs. "Just – alright, here." His fingers, swift and nimble, reach for the hem of his own Nirvana t-shirt, pulling it off in one swift motion.

Kuwei blinks. Skin, cocoa dark, stomach and flesh and – a binder, cutting into the flawless dark at the blossom of his ribs. "Oh."

Jesper shoves his hands into his pockets, collar bones carved like wings, shifting as he moves. "Your turn."

His fingers tremble at the buttons of his plaid shirt, and he swallows against the boulder sitting in his throat. He keeps his gaze determinedly forward as he shrugs it off his shoulders; he doesn't need to see anymore of himself than he already has, the things he has to fix and change, the things he doesn't want. Easier to keep looking at Jesper, the overlap of his lips and the smooth skin of his navel, the tightening of his muscles. He shouldn't be looking but he does, and he will.

Jesper smiles, like the golden expanse of Kuwei's skin is something to smile at. "Good. Now repeat after me: we are men."

"We are men," Kuwei mumbles, a whisper of breath as he shuffles his feet, wrapping his arms around his middle.

"WE ARE MEN." Jesper bellows, hands on his hips, voice filling the entirety of the wrecked school toilet.

"Oh my god, be quiet," Kuwei hisses, glancing around nervously, as though someone's just around the corner to chastise them. Someone always is.

"MEN," he shouts again, louder this time.

"Alright, we're men," Kuwei spits through gritted teeth, raising his palms. "Shut up, alright?"

"Not until you say it too," Jesper smirks, all sharp elbows and wrists and collar bones, leaning back on his hips.

"Yeah, we're men."

Jesper tilts his head to the side, as if considering it. "We're what now, sorry? I didn't hear you," he sings, dragging out the syllables.

Kuwei rolls his eyes. "Men. We're men," he repeats, slightly louder, uncrossing his arms.

"WHAT?" Jesper yells again, eyes widening comically.

"WE'RE MEN, JESPER."

"LOUDER, BITCH."

Kuwei scowls, breath catching in his throat at the flicker of tongue over Jesper's lips. "WE'RE MEN, WE'RE FUCKING MEN. WE. ARE. MEN."

"Am I interrupting something?"

A dry voice sounding from the corner of the bathroom, cutting through the electric air. Kaz Brekker, of course, leaning against the door in the daily immaculate black attir, his sleek cane balanced next to him. He looks murderous, as usual. But an amused murderous, perhaps.

Jesper grins, turning on his heel to face him. "Nah, baby. You're just in time. We've been waiting."

"Don't expect me to take my shirt off too."

"Of course not, just pants for you." Jesper winks, and grins at Kuwei once more, reaching for his shirt again. "Feeling better, sweetheart?"

And maybe Kuwei won't admit it, but yeah. He does.

* * *

Inej doesn't see it clearly at first. The image swims in front of her, ducking in and out of focus and she sways slightly, one hand braced on the wall for support. This shouldn't be here. Her fingers curl around the edge of the paper, plastered to the bare brick wall. She hadn't realised her hands were shaking. Maybe if she blinks again, it'll be different. Not unmistakably him, unmistakably Kaz leaning into Jesper, Jesper leaning into Kaz hands touching skin and she's never touched that skin. She knows where it's from. The party Kaz had said she wasn't needed at, Pim's seventeenth bash with girls and boys and alcohol and Jesper and Kaz. She wasn't needed.

A hot, burning rush of something floods her chest, an ache. Fire in every part of her. She tears it down, balling the paper in one fist and the one after that, the row of pictures lining the corridor of Jesper-and-Kaz and Kaz-and-Jesper until there's a wad of crumpled love she didn't ask for sitting in her hand. Slamming her locker shut, she pushes herself away from the wall, something burning her, breath caught in her throat. She hadn't known it could feel like this, the harsh tear of jealously breaking her apart because she shouldn't care but he'd _promised_. She'd seen his hands, trembling over her, inches away from her bare skin. His skin, pressed to Jesper.

_"I want this, Inej."_

_She could carve him into mountains, this moment. His fingers, him, so close she can smell the bitterness of smoke on his neck, one hand pressed on the wall next to her, breaking into a trembling mess of boy and she wants to touch him. Infinitely close, this moment. His voice a gravelly murmur, she can feel the silent war inside him, breaking him apart. A freckle to the left of his mouth, and if she leaned up she could kiss him. She won't. But she could._

She's stalking through the corridors, cutting through the mass of bodies and teenagers and she could never touch Kaz as carelessly as she brushes aside these kids. Jesper did. At the party. The one she wasn't needed at.

_Bare chest, gleaming in the sun. A boy grinning wickedly at her in a spill of light, flooding from all corners of the room, tugging on his shirt and almost laughing. Kaz Brekker doesn't laugh. But almost. He's telling her her skin's like gold. She hadn't heard that before._

Inej sees him, catches him in the corner of her eye ducking out of the bathroom, straightening his fucking jacket of course. He arches an eyebrow at her when he sees her, lips curling as he sees her in a not quite smile and _how fucking dare he_. She doesn't smile, she won't _fucking_ smile for this. She slams the crumpled wad of photos into his chest, snarls.

"What-"

"These are yours," she spits, voice snapping and maybe she's unfair but he did this. He couldn't touch her.

He unfurls the paper, shooting her a questioning glance from underneath his charcoal lashes, his fucking eyelashes and he's not allowed to be this pretty right now. She shouldn't have to look at him like this. His face blanches as he smoothes the photos, any colour he might've had draining as he blinks, fingers clenched so tight over the printed picture it could tear.

"Where did you get these?" His voice is urgent, eyes flicking towards her, bright and gleaming and dark.

Inej crosses her arms over her chest as Jesper emerges behind him, swinging out of the bathroom with his usual careless stride.

"Doesn't matter." She snaps her teeth together, a strange pang searing her to the bone as Jesper looks quizzically between them. "Sort it out yourself. It's your fucking problem."

She turns on her heel, disappears into the steady stream of teenagers and pretends her breath isn't trapped in her chest, pretends she can't hear him calling after her and her hands aren't as empty as they feel. She won't smile for this.

* * *

Pekka Rollins hums to himself quietly, voice barely above a murmur as he sticks yet another A4 picture to the wall, poking his tongue between his teeth as he tapes down the corners one more time, just in case. You can never be too careful with Kaz Brekker, after all. It's one thing getting a picture like this, another to make it stick. Pekka has never been vengeful, in all honesty. But he knows how to take people apart. Brekker trades in secrets, everyone knows that; he has the dirt on anyone, anything, can give you a quick fix or a black eye depending on his mood. This is the undoing of Kaz Brekker.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to everyone reading this, maybe leave a kudos or a comment if you're feeling particularly nice? i cry when i read comments no joke.  
> y'all can yell at me on [tumblr](http://the-girl-who-cried-ship.tumblr.com/)  
> thanks to [kitty](https://kitten-with-too-many-ships.tumblr.com/) for helping me with this  
> new chapter will be up soon!  
> title from [this song](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9h80Sr15n4M) from heathers: the musical y'all should listen to it  
> thanks again! xx
> 
> ~ Kinzie


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